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Thursday, October 23, 2008

The Lost Temples!

Ancient Temples of Malaysia

Temples have long been part of the local landscape of South East Asia, with great monuments such as Angkor Wat in Cambodia and Borobudur in Indonesia built by the Hindu and BuddhistKingdoms of the Pre-Islamic era. Having said so, one would wonder why no monuments were built in the Malay Peninsular of modern day Malaysia.Perhaps a little correction should be made there; no monuments have been discovered yet.It is generally accepted by historians that a Hindu civilisation was established in the BujangValley up north in the ancient Kingdom of Kedaram. Tamil traders established settlements in the BujangValley as early as the 3rd century AD.Over 50 Buddhist and Hindu temples have been excavated from various sites in the valley.

An Ancient Ruin of the Bujang Valley

Over many centuries these temples were lost swallowed by the jungles of Malaya. Though almost 30 sites were discovered, none of them have matched the collosal size of those discovered in neighbouring countries. However it is widely believed that deep in the jungles of Malaysia lay hidden monuments which will enrich the Pre-Islamic history of Malaysia.

True buddy....in fact we could go on giving examples with no end to the list...Kerinci for example comes from the tamil word Kurinji (mountain). South East Asia on the whole so so fused with Indianness......along with other later influences,such as from the chinese, arab and portugese etc.